1 . In Yu Chenrui’s creations, wood comes alive. Yu is an automata (机械人偶) maker. Wooden figures in his creations move as if by magic.
Automata look like humans or animals and give the illusion (错觉) of being able to move on their own. The automata have its origins in ancient Greece. Indeed, the name comes from the Greek word automatos, meaning “moves on its own”. Automata were the first complex machines produced by man, and the mechanical principles haven’t changed for thousands of years.
Interested in handicrafts as a boy, Yu first encountered automata designed by Kazuaki at an exhibition in 2015 when he studied at college. “It was like meeting a like-minded friend,” Yu says. As an art and design major, he began to learn the craft by himself and, with the support of his tutor Lu Ying, he kept studying and examining automata at school. Now the hobby has become a career.
When he graduated in 2016, Yu got a job at an advertising agency in Beijing. While working as a designer, Yu kept exploring and advancing his skills in wood carving. Despite the job’s good salary, it was not enough to compensate for (补偿) not following his true passion. Finally, in 2018, Yu quit his job and returned to his hometown Chengdu to open his automata workshop.
Many of Yu’s creations are built with a source of wisdom, a sense of humor and are inspired by observations of real life. Woodcutter and Worm is inspired by his own experience of finding a wormhole while he was cutting wood. The piece shows a creature with its eyes wide open the moment the log (木头) in which it lives is being cut in two.
Yu knows that there are many more creative ideas waiting to be expressed. “It feels quite good to be fully devoted to automata creation and I am still searching for myself,” Yu said.
1. What can we learn about automata?| A．They can move on their own. |
| B．They are totally made of wood. |
| C．They first appeared in ancient Greece. |
| D．They change significantly over time. |
| A．His childhood hobby. |
| B．The art work designed by Kazuaki. |
| C．The advice from his tutor Lu Ying. |
| D．His experience of studying at college. |
| A．He wanted to return to his hometown. |
| B．He wanted to seek what he loved. |
| C．He didn’t get well paid as a designer. |
| D．He didn’t like to work in that company. |
| A．Yu created his art works seriously. |
| B．Yu’s creations are very humorous. |
| C．Yu is a person with great wisdom. |
| D．Yu got inspiration by observing life. |
What inspires you?
Every artist’s wish is to create something that expresses an idea. But where do artists get their ideas from?Who or what inspires them? Here we find out more about the influences behind the successes of three very different artists.
Florentijn Hofman, visual artist
Florentijn Hofman is a Dutch artist，whose large sculptures are on display all over the world. One way for him to find inspiration is turning to his children’s toys. These objects have given him ideas for his animal sculptures，such as the famous Rubber Duck. A more recent work of his is the huge Floating Fish, which was set among the beautiful landscape of Wuzhen West Scenic Zone.
Hofman’s inspiration for Floating Fish came from Chinese folk tales passed down through the generations. He was particularly interested in the old story about a fish jumping through the “Dragon Gate”. This story came to life for Hofman when he visited Wuzhen and saw how people lived there.
“During the walk and my stay here in the town, I saw the fish being fed by people. You see also some fish sculpted on the wall.” These sights set Hofman’s idea for Floating Fish in motion.
Tan Dun，composer
“There is no territory in the world of music.” These are the words of Chinese composer Tan Dun. He is most widely known for composing music for the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
To listen to Tan’s music is to experience a mix of Chinese musical traditions and Western influences. Since his first opera, Nine Songs, Tan Dun has been using a combination of Chinese music and sounds from all over the world to tell stories. As Tan once said, Chinese music should carry “universal expression” of the human spirit so as to be recognised by the whole world.
Yang Liping, dancer
Yang Liping’s passion is dancing. After winning a national competition in 1986 with her Spirit of the Peacock dance, she has been known as the “Peacock Princess”. The inspiration for her famous dances has come from the time she spent in Xishuangbanna，Yunnan Province.
“I feel very grateful for the years in Xishuangbanna,” says Yang. “It gave me a chance to go deeper into the lives of various ethnic groups...Our ethnic groups, especially the Dai people, admire the peacock. They think the peacock represents the beauty of nature. I especially like the dance style of the Dai people and it gives me lots of inspiration. My dance comes from their traditional belief and aims to bring out the Dai women’s beauty.”
1. What is the theme of the text?| A．Three artists and their famous works. |
| B．Three artists and their great achievements. |
| C．Three artists and their sources of inspiration. |
| D．Three artists and their own different jobs. |
| A．A fish toy. |
| B．The wish to hold an exhibition. |
| C．A duck floating on the water. |
| D．His experience in Wuzhen. |
| A．He is the director of Crouching Tiger，Hidden Dragon. |
| B．He is the director of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. |
| C．He is the composer of Nine Songs. |
| D．He gets inspiration only from Chinese music. |
| A．Yang Liping won an international competition in 1986. |
| B．Yang Liping was born in Yunnan Province. |
| C．Yang Liping thinks the peacock represents the beauty of nature. |
| D．Yang Liping gets lots of inspiration from the dance style of the Dai people. |
| A．An art magazine. |
| B．An artist biography. |
| C．An online art forum. |
| D．A poster for an art festival. |
(1)
(2)
7. 细读短文并找出人物描写的句子
(1)
(3)
3 . In the long river of inheriting and preserving intangible cultural heritages, people have encountered numerous challenges, especially in this rapidly developing era. Fortunately, there are still many individuals who persistently make efforts to safeguard it.
Chang Yangyang is such a person. As an inheritor of intangible cultural heritage, he once worked at a factory. Although he had learned the craft paper-cutting from his grandmother since childhood, in the eyes of Chang’s parents, a hobby was far less precious than a stable job. They didn’t change their minds until he won third prize in a national paper-cutting competition in 2010. This opened a new door for him in paper-cutting, which strengthened his determination to continue his career in the craft.
In addition to practicing skills diligently, Chang thought more about how to promote the Mengjin paper-cutting culture and let more people know about this intangible cultural heritage.
In his early years, Chang conducted local training and salons. Later, He tried Douyin live-streaming. At first, Chang was shy. But gradually, he became more familiar with it and learned to interact with viewers. In this way, he expanded his audience and followers from dozens of people to hundreds of thousands.
The young paper-cutting artist and instructor hopes there are more young people learning the art. It is for this reason that he currently teaches the art of paper-cutting at several local primary schools, Chang says his life dream is to establish a paper-cutting museum one day so people can learn more about the art form and grow to love it as much as he does.
With more young craftsmen like Chang injecting fresh energy, the intangible cultural heritage will be able to continue sharing the same clear wind with mountains and forests, and the same bright moon with rivers in the future years, moving towards eternity.
1. How did Chang’s parents find his paper-cutting career before 2010?| A．Supportive. | B．Opposed. |
| C．Indifferent. | D．Contradictory. |
| A．He spread paper-cutting online. | B．He opened a paper-cutting school. |
| C．He took part in many competitions. | D．He practiced the skills occasionally. |
| A．Make profit from paper-cutting. | B．Learn more about other art forms. |
| C．Establish a paper-cutting museum. | D．Expand his audience and followers. |
| A．Young man with happy stories. | B．Traditions in Chang’s family. |
| C．Intangible cultural heritages in history. | D．New craftsman with old craft. |
4 . Auerbach is one of Britain’s most famous painters, with works in every major national gallery. He has been a significant member of the post-war artists, including Bacon, Moore and Freud, whose creative originality made the UK a major pulse (脉搏) for art.
He has also, over the decades, invented a language of art that is recognisably his own, stretching beyond any comfort zone, shocking himself and, in turn, the viewer. A special structural formality in his portraits exists alongside free-flowing marks arising from intense observation. A must-see exhibition of nine paintings and 11 drawings, it’s small and, as it is in a commercial gallery, completely free.
Auerbach is today’s Grand Old Master of British Art, famously spending 365 days a year in the studio searching through paint for hard truths to give a picture of the human form. A personal connection exists between us as I took his photograph in his studio, marking our friendship lasting almost 40 years.
During the pandemic (流行病), for the first time in 70 years, Auerbach stopped having art models: so using himself. He stayed alone in his brown cave of a studio in Camden, North London and turned to self-portraits. Perhaps this is the ultimate portrait of the artist as an old man, as he explores his own face in a way he had previously avoided. “I didn’t find actual formal components (组成部分) of my head all that interesting when I was younger and less tired. Now that I’ve got bags under my eyes, things are sagging and so on, there’s more material to work with,” he writes.
Opposite to the belief that old age may not inspire great works, Auerbach’s late career proves otherwise. Like Titian, who influenced Rembrandt, Rubens, and Velázquez, Auerbach’s powerful expressiveness is shown in his painting. His new works give an example of the idea of late greats, proving his artistic skills even in his later years.
1. What do we know about Auerbach?| A．He made art a major in the UK. | B．He took pictures of the human form. |
| C．He created his own art language. | D．He exhibited his paintings regularly. |
| A．He stayed alone in the studio. | B．He stopped using art models. |
| C．He found his head interesting. | D．He wanted to explore his own face. |
| A．He created great works in his old age. | B．He took up painting with other artists. |
| C．He had opposite belief in great works. | D．He had a deep influence on some artists. |
| A．A literature textbook. | B．An art magazine. |
| C．A research paper. | D．A science fiction. |
5 . Four Things You May Not Know About Picasso
1. Picasso was considered a child genius.
Born in Malaga on the southern coast of Spain in 1881, Pablo Picasso could actually draw before he could talk. By age 13 he was said to have drawn better than his father, an art teacher. As a result, his father handed over his brushes to Picasso and claimed that he would never paint again. Soon after, Picasso was admitted to an art school in Barcelona. Although a month was normally allowed to complete the entrance examination, he finished his in a single day. Much later, he stated that he could draw “like Raphael” when he was young. “But it has taken me my whole life to learn to draw like a child,” he added.
2. Picasso constantly changed his painting style.
As a teenager, Picasso painted fairly realistic portraits and landscapes. He then went through his so-called blue and rose periods from 1901 to 1906, in which he painted such things as poverty-stricken children and circus scenes. He created Cubism(立体派), an abstract style that reduced subjects to geometric(几何) forms. By 1912 Picasso had invented collage(抽象拼贴画) by attaching oilcloth, newspaper clippings and other materials to the surface of his paintings.
3. Picasso helped with the creation of Cubism.
Picasso co-founded Cubism with Georges Braque around 1909. The pair regularly visited each other’s studios and exchanged ideas. In Braque’s words, it was rather “like two mountaineers roped together”. Their working relationship, which produced an increasingly abstract common technique, lasted until 1914, when Braque joined in the French army at the beginning of World War Ⅰ.
4. Picasso was not just a painter.
Though best known for his painting, Picasso experimented with a number of different mediums, including sculpture, ceramics(陶瓷), drawing and printmaking(版画). From 1917 to 1924, he even designed the curtain, sets and costumes for some ballets. The earliest of those, Parade, featured a dancer who would become his first wife and the mother of his first child. Picasso started writing poetry in 1935, and he also wrote two plays in the 1940s.
1. Picasso was a child genius, as can best be supported by the fact that ________.| A．he finished his painting for the entrance examination in one day |
| B．he could draw better than his parents when he was a little boy |
| C．he spent many years learning to draw like a child |
| D．he got admission to a famous art school in Barcelona |
| A．Curtain. | B．Costume. | C．Poetry. | D．Mask. |
| A．Picasso’s painting style was always changing. |
| B．Picasso made his creations in various fields of arts. |
| C．Picasso and Georges Braque worked together to develop Cubism. |
| D．Picasso didn’t show talent for painting until his youth. |
6 . Becoming Van Gogh: the Paris Years
Vincent van Gogh is considered among the greatest painters of all time. However, he remained needy and unknown throughout his life. In February 1886, Van Gogh was so poor that he could not pay his rent in Belgium. He hastened(赶往)to Paris and moved in with his brother, Theo.
The sudden move ended up being particularly influential to Van Gogh. The Dutch painter was immediately introduced to a community of young avant-garde(前卫派的)artists experimenting with new styles. It was the beginning of a two-year period that resulted in a remarkable shift in his work, from the dark hues(色调)of his early realist paintings to the colorful flowers and portraits that most people associate with Van Gogh today.
At the time, the Impressionists(印象派画家), who were already the dominant force on the French capital’s cultural scene, were busy with their explorations of light and shadow. The Pointillists(点彩派画家)were separating out colors into individual dots to form figures. The Cloisonnists(分隔派画家), meanwhile, were painting with bold and flat forms separated by dark outlines. Van Gogh became exposed to all these styles and many more, and he tried his hand at all of them.
Van Gogh was particularly inspired by the work of Adolphe Monticelli, a painter from Provence who was known for his thickly-painted and colorful flowers. Monticelli’s work was what later drew Van Gogh to the French city of Arles(阿尔勒).
“It was during that period that Van Gogh really became the artist we know today,” said Nicholas Maclean, co-director of the Eykyn Maclean Gallery in London. “He was soaking up all the influences around him. He used their techniques and developed his own style.”
However, it wasn’t only the art Van Gogh saw that influenced his style and choice of subjects. “One of the things that is probably the best-known aspect about Van Gogh is that he had little money, so he was relying on his brother all the time,” Maclean added. “He ended up focusing on flowers because they were available and cheap, but that was also the main factor that led him towards the study of color.”
1. Which one is NOT TRUE about Vincent van Gogh?| A．His poverty contributed to the formation of his style of painting. |
| B．His painting was greatly influenced by avant-garde artists. |
| C．He ended up studying colors only because of the cheap and available flowers. |
| D．He tried many painting styles and formed his own style finally. |
| A．learn from | B．be absorbed in | C．change | D．pay no attention to |
| A．His move to Paris. |
| B．Various styles of painting styles. |
| C．The work of Adolphe Monticelli. |
| D．His poverty. |
| A．His brother, Theo influenced his study of color most. |
| B．The impressionists enjoyed a great reputation in Holland. |
| C．It is the poverty of Van Gogh that stimulates his study of hues(色调，颜色). |
| D．Van Gogh learned and liked all the types of styles. |
7 . Cubism of Pablo Picasso
Picasso and Braque worked together closely during the next few years(1909-1912)—the only time Picasso ever worked with another painter in this way—and they developed what came to be known as Analytical Cubism. Early Cubist paintings were often misunderstood by critics and viewers because they were thought to be merely geometric art. Yet the painters themselves believed they were presenting a new kind of reality that broke away from Renaissance tradition, especially from the use of perspective and illusion. For example, they showed multiple views of an object on the same canvas to convey more information than could be contained in a single limited illusionistic view.
As Kahnweiler saw it, Cubism signified the opening up of closed form by the “re-presentation” of the form of objects and their position in space instead of their imitation through illusionistic means; and the analytic process of fracturing objects and space, light and shadow, and even colour was likened by Apollinaire to the way in which the surgeon dissects a cadaver. That type of analysis is characteristic of Picasso’s work beginning in 1909, especially in the landscapes he made on a trip to Spain that summer (Factory at Horta de Ebro). Those were followed in 1910 with a series of hermetic portraits (Ambroise Vollard; Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler); and in his 1911-1912 paintings of seated figures, often playing musical instruments (The Accordionist, 1911), Picasso merged figures, objects, and space on a kind of grid. The palette was once again limited to monochromatic ochres, browns, and grays.
Neither Braque nor Picasso desired to move into the realm of total abstraction in their Cubist works, although they implicitly accepted inconsistencies such as different points of view, different axes, and different light sources in the same picture. Furthermore, the inclusion of abstract and representational elements on the same picture plane led both artists to reexamine what two-dimensional elements, such as newspaper lettering, signified. The inclusion of lettering also produced the powerful suggestion that Cubist pictures could be read coming forward from the picture plane rather than receding (in traditional perspective) into it. And the Cubists’ manipulation of the picture shape— their use of the oval, for example— redefined the edge of the work in a way that underlined the fact that in a Cubist picture the canvas provides the real space.
1. Why was Analytical Cubism regarded as a normal geometric art at first?| A．Because critics and viewers were not qualified. |
| B．Because Analytical Cubism artists themselves thought their arts were geometric art. |
| C．Because Analytical Cubism was just a new form breaking away from Renaissance tradition. |
| D．Because they both have some similarities on showing their art involved. |
| A．Factory at Horta de Ebro. | B．Ambroise Vollard. |
| C．The Accordionist. | D．The Dream. |
| A．Braque and Picasso were willing to move into the realm of total abstraction. |
| B．Braque and Picasso used to frankly hold inconsistent opinions in the same picture. |
| C．Two-dimensional elements can create a more powerful implication when the pictures are read. |
| D．The use of the picture shape underlined the fact that in a Cubist picture the canvas provides the real space. |
8 . How Did Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Die?
On November 20th, 1791, Mozart suddenly came down with fever and was wracked with pain. His arms and legs were severely swollen. In the following days his health significantly deteriorated. He died on December 5 after lapsing into a coma. The death certificate states he died of “severe miliary fever”. Exactly which disease led to Mozart’s death has been a mystery for the last 200 years.
SpeculationsMany myths —some more plausible than others — entwine (缠绕) Mozart’s early demise. One of the most popular myths — that Mozart was poisoned by his rival Antonio Salieri — rose to prominence due to the popularity of the film Amadeus. This theory is supported by the fact that Mozart had been living through a phase of depression before his death, suffering from paranoia and existential fear. Mozart himself suspected that the cause of his deteriorating health was being poisoned over a long time. However, it is highly likely that this was just his subjective view of reality.
Many other speculations circulate. Syphilis and trichinellosis are frequently mentioned. In 1905, a French physician assumed uric acid poisoning due to a never fully healed nephritis. In 1961, lead poisoning was suggested as a possible cause of death.
Scientific attempts to explain Mozart’s deathIn 2000, a group of American scientists proposed rheumatic fever caused by a strep infection after conducting meticulous detective work. The symptoms stated in literature and the reports of Mozart’s contemporaries yielded the clues. Without antibiotics, such an infection would inevitably lead to death. Rheumatic fever causes a weakening of the heart, which could explain Mozart’s swollen limbs.
In 2009, the Dutch scientist Richard Zegers extensively studied surviving documents and concluded that Mozart had been suffering from pharyngitis, a throat infection with symptoms including cramps, fever, rashes and a swollen neck. Mozart’s sister-in-law Sophie Haibel had described these symptoms. The death registry of Vienna for winter 1791 lists several deaths caused by this disease.
Whatever the cause of Mozart’s death, it came far too early. Let us thank him for his manic urge to create art and remember him on December 5th!
1. Which of the following is similar in meaning to the underlined word “deteriorate” (Paragraph 1)?| A．To become worse. | B．To change greatly. |
| C．To recover quickly. | D．To be harmed rapidly. |
| A．It is generally believed that Mozart was poisoned by his friend. |
| B．Mozart’s depression paranoia and existential fear led to his death. |
| C．Mozart had been poisoned sustainably for a long time before he died. |
| D．Mozart once got a nephritis and it was never healed. |
| A．Mozart’s disease was recorded in contemporary literature and reports. |
| B．Antibiotics were not discovered at that time. |
| C．Rheumatic fever can only be caused by strep infection. |
| D．Mozart’s illness cannot be cured even today. |
| A．To back up the Dutchman’s study. |
| B．To prove they were common symptoms causing death in 1791. |
| C．To prove Mozart did have such symptoms before his death. |
| D．To emphasize her special identify as a witness to Mozart’s death. |
9 . The expressive quality of both the forms and gestures in the basically monochromatic composition of Guernica found its way into Picasso’s other work, especially in the intensely coloured versions of Weeping Woman (1937) as well as in related prints and drawings, inportraits of Dora Maar and Nusch Eluard (wife of Picasso’s friend, the French poet Paul Eluard), and in still lifes (Still Life with Red Bull’s Head, 1938). Those works led to the claustrophobic interiors and skull-like drawings (sketchbook number 110, 1940) of the war years, which Picasso spent in France with Maar as well as with Jaime Sabartes, a friend of his student days in Barcelona. Thereafter Sabartés shared Picasso’s life as secretary, biographer, and companion and more often than not as the butt of endless jokes (Portrait of Jaime Sabartes, 1939; Retour de Bruxelles, sketchbook number 137, 1956).
After the liberation of Paris, Picasso resumed exhibiting his work, notably at the Salon d’Automne of 1944 (“Salon de la Libération”), where his canvases of the preceding five years were received as a shock. At the same time, Picasso opened up his studio to both newand old writer and artist friends, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Pierre Reverdy, Eluard, the photographer Brassai, the English artist Roland Penrose, and the American photographer Lee Miller, as well as many American GIs.
Already in 1943 a young painter, Francoise Gilot, had presented herself at the studio, and within months she became Picasso’s mistress. In 1946 Picasso moved to the Mediterranean with Gilot (with whom he was to have two children, Claude in 1947 and Paloma in 1949). First they stayed near Antibes, where Picasso spent four months painting at the Château Grimaldi (Joie de Vivre, 1946). The paintings of that time and the ceramics he decorated at the studio in nearby Vallauris, beginning in 1947, vividly express Picasso’s sense of identification with the classical tradition and with his Mediterranean origins. They also celebrate his new found happiness with Gilot, who in works of that period was often nymph to Picasso’s fauns and centaurs.
1. What can we learn about Picasso’s works during the World War II?| A．There were intensive colours in the works at that time. |
| B．Most of the works at that time were portraits. |
| C．Skull-like paintings were the features of the works at that time. |
| D．Sabartes contributed to Picasso’s works at that time in terms of inspiration. |
| A．Continue. | B．Abandon. | C．Restate. | D．Reserve. |
| A．Picasso and Gilot got married in 1946. | B．Gilot was as famous as Picasso at that time. |
| C．Picasso portrayed Gilot in his paintings. | D．Picasso and Gilot had three children. |
10 . Picasso’s reputation as a major 20th-century sculptor came only after his death, because he had kept much of his sculpture in his own collection. Beginning in 1928, Picasso began to work in iron and sheet metal in Julio González’s studio in Paris. Then, in 1930, he acquired the Chateau Boisgeloup (northwest of Paris), where he had room for sculpture studios. There, with his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter as his muse, Picasso began working in 1931 on large-scale plaster heads. In the 1930s he also made constructions incorporating found objects, and until the end of his life Picasso continued working in sculpture in a variety of materials.
Picasso’s ceramics(陶瓷制品) are usually set apart from his main body of work and are treated as less important, because at first glance they seem a somewhat frivolous exercise in the decoration of ordinary objects. Plates, jugs, and vases, made by craftsmen at the Madoura pottery in Vallauris, were in Picasso’s hands reshaped or painted, gouged out, scratched, or marked by fingerprints and, for the most part, were rendered useless. In turning to craft, Picasso worked with a sense of liberation, experimenting with the play between decoration and form (between two and three dimensions) and between personal and universal meaning.
During that period Picasso’s fame increasingly attracted numerous visitors, including artists and writers, some of whom (Hélène Parmelin, Édouard Pignon, Éluard, and especially Louis Aragon) encouraged Picasso’s further political involvement. He contributed designs willingly (his dove was used for the World Peace Congress poster in Wroclaw, Poland, in 1949), which was from a sincere and lifelong sympathy with any group of repressed people. War and Peace, two panels begun in 1952 to adorn the Temple of Peace attached to an old chapel in Vallauris, reflect Picasso’s personal optimism of those years.
1. Which of the following statements is NOT true?| A．Picasso only became famous after his death. | B．Picasso had a lot of his own collections. |
| C．In 1930 he began to make incorporating objects. | D．He started working in 1931. |
| A．Not having any serious purpose or value. | B．Able to be used for a practical purpose. |
| C．Funny and ridiculous. | D．Expensive and elegant. |
| A．Because Picasso kept a lot of his artworks after his own death. |
| B．Because Picasso had the ability to attract many visitors and writers. |
| C．Because Picasso’s artworks carried his sense of liberation and designed specially. |
| D．Because Picasso’s artworks are worth a lot of money. |
| A．Picasso’s Outstanding Sculpture |
| B．Why We All Love Picasso’s Art? |
| C．Picasso’s Works of Sculpture and Ceramics |
| D．Picasso’s In-depth Influence on Art and Politics |
